The ramblings of an Australian SaND TSC* Principal Field Technologist

CEC '08 Saturday/Sunday

OK, I've been slack. Not only have I not blogged since September, I've been at CEC2008 since Saturday and also haven't written anything.

The trip out

Caught a shuttle to the airport, grabbed some lunch after clearing customs and caught a United flight to Los Angeles. Unfortunately I was stuck in a window seat at the back of the aircraft for the 13 hours in the air which was less than comfortable, sigh.

As I was near the back of the aircraft I was one of the last off and at the rear of the line to clear US Immigration in Los Angeles. It was great to see the officers actually smiling and laughing with the passengers. Picked up my luggage, cleared customs and rechecked it. Walked out to terminal 7 to get the flight to Las Vegas. Cleared security ok, but unfortunately one of my colleagues was behind someone who they decided to thoroughly check the bags of, and as a result he missed the flight and had to catch another.

I arrived in Las Vegas and went looking for my checked luggage, ...

This is the first time that this has happened to me. Apparently my luggage was still in LA, and might arrive on the next flight. As it turns out it wasn't the next flight, they got it to the Casino after I was asleep about 11:30pm, so I got it the next morning.

Met up with Chris Gerhard on the bus and headed out to the Paris Casino. Quite a few of us joined up for a quiet drink in Napoleon's Piano Bar.

Sunday

Didn't wake up until around 10:30am and then spent the morning putting finishing touches on my presentation.

I noticed that the certification room was open, so I decided to give the Solaris 10 Security Administrator exam a go. This exam has a pass mark of 52% and the course notes and trial exams did not give me a lot of hope for getting through first go.

Imagine my surprise on scoring 71%! Wonderful I now posses the Admin, Nework and Security Certifications!